·
1980 National Society of Film
Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor (Frederic Forrest)

·
1981 London Critics Film Circle
award for Film of the Year

date of release ·
1979

producers

· Francis Ford Coppola (credited as Francis Coppola)

· Coproduced by Fred Roos, Gray Frederickson, and Tom Sternberg

setting (time) ·
1968

setting (place) · Vietnam

protagonist · U.S. army captain Benjamin Willard

major conflict · Willard must struggle against the horrors and hypocrisies
of war and the darkness within himself to complete his mission and
kill Colonel Kurtz.

rising action · As Willard works his way upriver to Kurtz, his target,
he faces and participates in several of the war’s atrocities and
absurdities, including a preemptive air strike on a Vietnamese village,
a seedy USO show, and an attack on innocent Vietnamese peasants
in a sampan, leading him to realize fully the futility of war and question
whether he will complete his mission and kill Kurtz, a man whom
he has come to admire and emulate to a disturbing degree.

climax · Willard’s mud-covered emergence from the river cements
his Kurtzlike transformation and signals that he has given in to
the dark side of his nature and will murder Kurtz in a ruthless, ritualistic
fashion.

falling action · After murdering Kurtz, Willard is given the opportunity
to replace the colonel as a godlike figure. In rejecting this opportunity,
he rejects the acceptance of human evil as king.

themes · The hypocrisy of Western imperialism; madness as a
result of war; the emptiness of American values

motifs · Darkness; escape; home

symbols · Masks; the river; fog

foreshadowing · The film opens with helicopters lurking ominously over
the jungle, accompanied by the Doors’ moody song “The End”; Chef
and Willard encounter a tiger when they venture off the boat to
look for mangoes; Willard murders the Vietnamese peasant woman in
the sampan; Lance smears his face with paint like the members of
Kurtz’s army

Basically you get to pick a writer and you can communicate with them through an internal chat system which makes explaining how to do specific assignments a lot easier (especially if your teacher is a hard-ass like mine was.) Good luck with your paper!